He joined the microblogging site on 22 February and has already got about 140,000 followers. His tweets have been uncontroversial so far, providing links to news stories, videos and other articles about his Holiness.

On his second day on Twitter, the 75-year-old tweeted: "Dalai Lama says loves China despite 'suppression'." He joins the Vatican and a number of twitterers purporting to be Jesus Christ on the social networking site.

As he is the 14th reincarnation of the Dalai Lama and the temporal and spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, it is probably only right that he is not following anyone else (on Twitter). Perhaps he will stretch out a hand to Chinese president Hu Jintao, who is also on Twitter ‑ but only in the same way Jesus is.